Monitoring Winter Wheat Freeze Injury Using Multi-Temporal MODIS Data

Freeze injury is an usual disaster for winter wheat in Shanxi Province, China, and monitoring freeze injury is of important economic significance. The aim of this article is to monitor and analyze the winter wheat freeze injury using remote sensing data, to monitor the occurrence and spatial distribution of winter wheat freeze in time, as well as the severity of the damage. The winter wheat freeze injury was monitored using multi-temporal moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, combined with ground meteorological data and field survey data, the change of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) before and after freeze injury was analyzed, as well as the effect of winter wheat growth recovery rate on yield. The results showed that the NDVI of winter wheat decreased dramatically after the suffering from freeze injury, which was the prominent feature for the winter wheat freeze injury monitoring. The degrees of winter wheat freeze injury were different in the three regions, of which, Yuncheng was the worst severity and the largest freeze injury area, the severity of freeze injury correlates with the breeding stage of the winter wheat. The yield of winter wheat showed positive correlation with its growth recovery rate (r = 0.659**) which can be utilized to monitor the severity of winter wheat freeze injury as well as its impact on yield. It can effectively monitor the occurrence and severity of winter wheat freeze injury using horizontal and vertical profile distribution and growth recovery rate, and provide a basis for monitoring the winter wheat freeze injury in Shanxi Province.